Darkwater
by Portrait
Summary: The Minister in the early 70s wasn't the cause of the war, but he certainly helped it along.


It was just a man with something to prove  
>Slightly bored and severely confused<br>He steadied his rifle with his target in the center  
>And became famous on that day in November<p>

**[-]**

Goodman Darkwater had been one of the most controversial Ministers in a long time. While he was indeed a Slytherin with questionable ties to the Dark, that was at the time not something so shocking. It was his following and his beliefs – which he never could be shown implementing into law. Darkwater was a very conservative man. He, a pureblood, believed strongly in pureblood rights – even at the expense of other blooded people. While he never put a pro-pureblood measure into the books, he kept them going and implemented some questionable measures against muggleborns. He was hated by the pro-muggle, equality groups and revered by the oldest, darkest families. His largest financial backers where the Lestrange and Malfoy families.

He was a charismatic man, always with a witty comeback and wide smile. He campaigned with hearty laughs and plenty of food for the surrounding crowd. He preached equality while making underhanded deals with the dark side. Mid-1970, only months into his first year as Minister, documents leaked. They admitted his real political leanings – what his opponents had presented in words and failed to put into the minds of the people.

Darkwater waved them away as foolishness and old stupidity – he'd grown. In the space of a month? Questioned a detractor, found dead weeks later.

Still, Darkwater had many fans. Despite his views, it was argued, he did not impalement them, and he ran quite well so far, and he was never cruel to muggleborns, now, was he? The backing of the three darkest families in England did not help his case by far, and yet the supporters argued against that. They believed, it was claimed, that he would follow through on his values – but he had so far not and had never once claimed to do so.

And so the controversy died down and the three families backed into the darkness, stewing as protest and progressiveness began to build in their world.

Time passed, and even though people did not like Darkwater, he was re-elected. Money was passed as before, bribes passed as before, but not at the consent of Goodman Darkwater. Oh, no. He had told Randalf himself that he wanted to lead the people who loved him, not those who loved money and were easy to bend.

The laws that had been feared to pass were. In the middle of a bill that was to protect the protesters against the violence ensured upon them, harsher penalties existed for the offender – if they were a protester and, as a bonus, were proved to be muggleborn. Hand waved as an anti-discrimination act (against the pro-purebloods), the law passed, population at large unaware of what was happening in their own country.

It was not the views of Darkwater that made him so hated. It was his excuses for everything, his hand waving, deals with those he claimed to disagree, supposed apathy toward the protesters. Still, he led well. Foreign leaders loved him and so did those with the most power in England. He went to a Winter Solstice ball at the Malfoys. He was invited to the Lestrange Chateau for brunch. He attended a summer party thrown by the Blacks.

Measures were put into place to protect those detractors claimed he hated and any bad thing that slipped by, well, the documents were long and heavy, and it was not like the Minister wrote them all himself. Mistakes were made. Those that included the measures were fined, demoted.

While a whirl went about his true beliefs and nature, Goodman Darkwater shook pleasant hands with a young protester, Gideon Prewett. "I agree, you know," Goodman had famously said. "Always speak your mind on what you belief in lad, it can lead to change."

"But do you agree with what I think, or what I do?" Gideon had argued. "Because only one matters."

Darkwater chuckled. "Both. Old laws to hide behind – constructed to hold back fear – should be no more. No need for oppression, no need for hate. Blood does not matter, does not make a person, does not make the wizard. I agree with you, lad, I sincerely do."

Prewett had raised an eyebrow skeptically but nodded vigorously as a picture was snapped with him and the Minster for the _Prophet._

Still, as opposition to the regime of Darkwater, the pro-pureblood measures and the increasing violence by unknown foes, protests raged. They grew ever large by the year as Darkwater began to fall apart at the seams.

What he said to Prewett? A lie. A reporter had overheard him days later in a pub, drinking late and laughing.

The pro-pureblood laws he upheld? Good for himself and that was what mattered. An intercepted letter to Abaraxs Malfoy said as much.

The anti-muggleborn items slipped into legislature? Screw the muggleborns! Darkwater made sure they got there, made sure the wording made it hard to reflect badly on him, and made sure those who helped construct and disagreed were the ones punished.

And then one day in November of 1976, Darkwater was in Wales, visiting family. They were strolling through a park, grandbaby in Darkwater's daughters' arms. Laughing and smiling, catching up, they never noticed the man crouched behind a thicket of bushes.

Wand pointed toward Darkwater, steady as to not hurt the others, he uttered a curse and Apparated away, not waiting long enough to see what happened.

Darkwater never knew what had occured.

"Why, Lucinda, I have always thought of you as a lovely girl. You kn-"

Violent red light pierced Goodman Darkwater's robes, struck his heart and stopped it. Screams erupted instantly, Lucinda nearly dropping her baby as she knelt at her fallen father's side, shrieking her terror into the sky. Goodman was dead.

Cries erupted immediately. See, the pro-Darkwater people claimed, the other side is the violent side! We aren't out killing! People cried. People panicked. Everyone knew war was brewing, on the threshold, and those that cared to look knew that war was already there. A Minister had not been assassinated in two hundred years. He was only the second to go!, reported the _Prophet_. A sure sign of war. Of brutality.

And brutality it was. The purebloods were furious. More so when a pro-muggle, liberal, Hufflepuff _idiot_ replaced their beloved Goodman. Opinion pieces in the paper were split. How dare they do this! How dare we not have found and killed the attacker! How dare these muggleborns! Or, He was corrupt! He supported the senseless murder of our friends! It's sad to see anyone one killed but can't you see the silver lining?

But the lining was not silver. Just after Goodman Darkwater was killed, war was declared. The new minister had a wand to his chest and a knife to his daughter's throat. _Slit! _Blood spurted and he struggled – as told not to! – and was killed. The head of the Auror Department disappeared. People went insane.

Protests in the street had ceased, or, at least, they had largely. Once or twice a large group would gather and shout. Then the purebloods would come in their finery and be civil and polite and the _Prophet_ just loved them. By and large, people were too afraid of bodily harm to leave their homes anymore. Diagon Alley was deserted. People refused to take sides.

War had begun. And the killer? No one knows.


End file.
